Nevada is an arid state, but there’s arid and then there’s drought. The Reno Gazette Journal provides a good summary of what northern Nevadans can expect from the current drought conditions.

Nevada has a “Drought Response Committee” and the water conservation plan, adopted in 2012 is available (pdf) online. As of now Churchill, Lander, Mineral, Pershing, Clark, Lyon, Nye, Washoe,and Humboldt counties have been officially designated as “primary natural disaster areas.” [unce]

For those wishing not to make a bad situation worse in northern Nevada, the Truckee Meadows Water Authority has a simple check list of things ordinary citizens can do to mitigate water shortages. For example, have you checked the toilet for leaks? If not, the household could be wasting (and paying for) up to 100 gallons of water per day. Multiply that by 365 days and the wastage is almost alarming, especially considering how much the water costs in the first place. Have you installed a water saving shower head? In reality all that’s really needed for a nice shower is about 2 1/2 gallons per minute. In short, if you’d like to save water, and thereby save on your water bill — check for leaks — faucets, toilets, shower heads — and find the savings on your monthly bill.

2 responses to “Yes, It’s a Drought”

Beacon, Here in Las Vegas we have return water credits. I joyfully take long, hot showers, pay full price for my indulgence and return plenty of not-so-gray water to the system for purification and return to the Colorado River. It’s the landscape water that disappears, never to return, which needs to be curbed. I have no landscape.